To Forgive to Forget, to Live so to Love
by pinkswallowsun
Summary: He's forgotten. You know he's forgotten, that much is obvious. He's forgotten, hasn't realised the date. Well, he has. Birthday fic for EmmaJ1996, H/N.


**OK, so firstly I need to say a big sorry for not uploading anything in over a week, I've been hugely busy with exam revision and helping out at my dance school while my teacher's having to take some time off. This time next week I'll probably still be taking the little kids for dance lessons, but I'll be done with exams for a bit so I promise to catch up on my writing :) If anyone has any suggestions of non-explicit, non-suggestive, upbeat, innocent, current songs for the 7-10 year old jazz dancers I'm helping with tomorrow evening, I would be hugely grateful. As would they, I think they're bored of Beyoncé :P **

**Secondly, I need to tell you that I tried so, so hard on this one. Not that I don't always try hard with them, but this was a real 'must make it perfect' one, so feedback would be seriously amazing :) Hopefully it worked out OK. **

**And lastly but most importantly, I need to say a huge HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Emmaj1996! :) Hope you have a fantastic day and you liked your prezzie, I did my best :) **

**Love Flossie xxx**

He's forgotten.

You know he's forgotten, that much is obvious. He's forgotten. In some ways you're not surprised, you think all in all, given that he's had a horrifically rough few months, you're willing to let this one go without a fuss. He's had a lot to come to terms with post Hungary, you know that, he's only just beginning to pull himself together again, almost 3 months on. Recently he seems to have finally won the battle against the demons which followed him home to London even after the nightmare of Budapest was long since over, thrown them out, but the scars left behind from that battle still remain. On the surface he seems to be back to normal, back to Harry, your Harry, but every now and then he loses control just a little, either of his anger or his grip on reality, his sense of awareness, sometimes a mixture of each. In the case of today, his hold on reality and awareness has somehow managed to slip slightly, in the sense that he hasn't realized what day it is today. Well, he has. He must know it's November 14th, it's everywhere around the office: on the calendar, on his computer screen, you know for a fact that he's just typed it at the top of his PM report. He knows it's November the 14th, he just hasn't made the connection.

To begin with, you thought perhaps it was some elaborate plan, thought that he wanted to make you think he'd forgotten so he could spring a surprise on you later. OK, so you got a text from Leo this morning, but you convinced yourself that he just wasn't in on it all. He's in Pretoria for a conference on the reliability of DNA as trace evidence in forensic pathology and recent technological advancements in toxicology screening, left yesterday evening; you're hugely jealous and not just because the conference topics sound so interesting. You opened your desk drawer this morning to find a card and a small wrapped box in there, which Leo had clearly planted before he left last night. Which reminds you, you need to phone Janet this evening and thank her. You haven't reached the grand old age of 34- no, 35, 35 now- without realizing that anyone possessing a Y chromosome in their genetic material is completely incapable of choosing such nice earrings without the help of a female.

But anyway, that's not really the point. The point is that to begin with, you thought this was all a ploy on Harry's part to try and make you believe he'd forgotten, that everyone had, and that because Leo wasn't going to be here today the two of them hadn't liaised and Harry didn't know about the card and the present in the drawer of your desk. That was what you thought. But then Zak handed you a card when he came in at lunchtime after a morning off, and as you smiled and leaned over to take it from him you noticed Harry cowering behind the bookshelves at the back of the office, clearly thinking he was out of sight. He almost was. You think he must have thought- or hoped- that you're shorter than you actually are, that you wouldn't see the brief flash of panic and embarrassment and shame and the tell-tale look of 'oh shit' all rolled into one that was momentarily visible before he turned away and disappeared behind the books from over the top of your computer screen, that you wouldn't suss it out. But you did, of course. You knew he'd forgotten your birthday.

It's no big deal, of course, you know that. It's not like you're a child anymore when birthdays are all about the presents and having a day all to yourself to feel special, you outgrew that more than two decades ago. You're hardly going to sulk about it. And you don't exactly relish the thought of getting older, of edging ever-so-slightly closer to being 40 and middle aged, which, of course, is the whole point of a birthday. So it's not a problem. It's not like everyone forgot, anyway, Leo and Janet remembered, Zak remembered. Your father will have remembered, so you can do the ceremonial deleting of the answer machine message when you get home which has become something of a birthday tradition in your adult years. And Sara's good at remembering birthdays; you'll check the post when you get home for a card. Then again, there is a postal strike on this week. Just your luck.

So it's not like you've been completely forgotten, or so you've been telling yourself over and over since that horribly awkward moment at lunchtime. You're just being stupid and petty and selfish, and you're going to snap out of it in the next few minutes, that's what you've promised yourself. Get over yourself, Nikki. It's just a stupid birthday. You're far too grown up and sensible and dignified to be giving this a second thought.

But still, it's not a great feeling, knowing that your best friend has completely forgotten your birthday.

In all fairness, you're pretty sure he felt terrible about it. He came back over from behind the bookshelves a few minutes later, sat down at his desk opposite you but he couldn't quite meet your gaze. Looking back now at getting on for 5.30 in the evening, you think perhaps the surprise idea crossed his mind, perhaps he thought if he just kept up the act until the end of the day he could nip out to the newsagents up the road and get you a card and pretend that had been his plan all along. You don't know. You think he might have been planning on doing that during his lunch break- when he'd printed out his PM report and filed it away he did get up rather frantically and root through his coat pockets, mumbling something about not being able to find his car keys. Unfortunately for him, just as he'd found them the DI from his latest case arrived for a PM and he had to abandon his wallet again and hurry down to the cutting room. So that was that.

You ended up spending a rather boring afternoon obsessively tidying the office because there was nothing else to do, almost wishing the phone would ring and you'd be called out to some remote crime scene in the middle of nowhere, just so you could get out of the office for a while, forget all about birthdays and cards (or lack of) and Hungary and… and Anna. Does it make you a really awful person if you're starting to blame this strange, messed up, saddened feeling inside on Anna Sandor? Probably. Your logic, pathetic as it is, is that if it hadn't been for her, if she hadn't been murdered and Harry hadn't been blamed for it, if Budapest hadn't happened, then Harry wouldn't have fallen apart, wouldn't still be in just a bit of a mess now, probably wouldn't have forgotten your birthday. Well, you suppose maybe he might still have forgotten your birthday, that this blunder on his part might be entirely non-Anna related, but it's much easier to saddle her with the blame than to force yourself to accept the possibility that maybe your best friend isn't bothered enough about you to remember your birthday. That really does make you a bad person, doesn't it, holding a vendetta against someone like that, someone you never even met? That, or a spoilt brat. Nikki, stop, now. Let it go.

Maybe you would have succeeded in letting it go (and possibly cancelling the bloody expensive air show tickets you'd reserved online for the weekend after Harry's birthday in March next year, but hey, forgive but don't forget and all that) if it hadn't been for what happened next.

It was getting on for 6 in the evening before Harry was finally back from wherever he'd been all afternoon; everyone else bar you had gone. You'd stayed to wait for him especially, planning on asking him to come out for drinks with you tonight, maybe to dinner. You were past the point of caring about the fact he'd forgotten your birthday, that he was apparently still trying to pretend he hadn't remembered; the fact remained that still he was your best friend, one of your only friends, and there was no way you were going to mope around in your apartment all by yourself on your birthday when you could go out and have a good time with a friend and just forget the 'birthday' part of the equation. Albeit the friend in question. And let's face it, what with Leo in South Africa soaking up the warm summer sun, gazing out on the wide open plains you've begun to feel so desperately homesick for of late and Janet at some kind of work event all evening, you hadn't got anyone else to ask.

You were extra-conscious in asking him to make it sound light-hearted, casual, as if you weren't expecting anything, weren't even just a tiny bit miffed with him, like today was just any other day. You just asked if he'd like to come out for a drink tonight, maybe for a meal if he's not in a rush to get home. And you knew from the moment his face fell a little, from the hesitation, the pause, the awkward silence, the world really was against you today of all days.

"You've got other plans, haven't you?" You hope that the sadness and disappointment and hurt and slight traces of anger didn't come out in your voice, you did your best. You thought you'd managed to get away with it at the time, but looking back you're not altogether sure.

"No, I…" He started to deny it, but you could tell, you could tell by torn look in his eyes. But suddenly in that moment, you found that you don't feel angry with him anymore, not really. It's not his fault he's got friends, got a social life other than you.

"Yes you have. Harry, it doesn't matter, honestly. We can do it another night."

"No. No, I… I'm sorry. I'm supposed to be meeting Sanne tonight," he confessed at that point, almost guiltily.

Sanne. You're not surprised, over the past 2 weeks everything seems to have come back to Sanne. Sanne is Harry's new girlfriend, no older than 28, 5''8 and gorgeous but caked in fake tan, trilingual Dutch language student and all-round genius, that's the description Harry gave you. Well, the trilingual language student and all-round genius part, not the caked in fake tan part and all that came before it. Everything about her screams rebound, not even accounting for the fact that her name is Harry's dead girlfriend's with an 'S' tagged on the front. God, that was horrible, that was a horrible thing even to think. No wonder you haven't got any friends if you go round thinking things like that, even to yourself.

"Oh, OK. Maybe another time." You know your voice sounded weak and pathetic in that moment as it dawned upon you he hadn't even remembered to keep his evening free as the pair of you (and Leo, but he's not here) have done for each of your birthdays since you've known him, that even if you were wrong and he hadn't sussed it out before, at that point he did. At that point it all became horribly clear to him, and he knew exactly what he'd done.

"Nikki? Nikki, listen…"

"Harry, don't be stupid, it doesn't matter," you insisted, throwing on your coat quickly and grabbing your handbag, anxious to get out of there as fast as possible before things got really, well and truly awkward. "I'll see you tomorrow, OK?" you told the floor in what was supposed to be a cheery voice but came out anything but. "Have a nice time with Sanne."

And so that's how you came to be here, sat alone at a bar just down the road from your apartment with a pina colada and trying to work out just how you ended up so horribly alone. You've got Harry and Leo, of course, but they've got other people too besides you, they can't be expected to change their plans just because you haven't got anyone else. Leo has Janet, and Harry… Harry has Sanne. Although how long that one is going to last, you really don't know. They've only been together for two weeks and it's still fairly early on in their relationship, but even so, you've convinced yourself that when Harry talks about Sanne, there's something in his eyes, something fiercely contradicting him when he tells you that she's perfect, that it's too early to be sure but he thinks he might be in love. You haven't had the heart to remind him that it's only been 3 months since Anna- not Sanne- died, only 3 months since he thought he was in love with her. He can't have moved on that quickly, no one can, it's just not possible. Either he didn't love Anna like he thought he did or he doesn't love Sanne, but it can't be both, it just can't. He's your Harry, he's not like that, he cares about the people he loves too much to move on so quickly. He's… he's not like that, he's… he's really not. You don't want him to be. You want… You don't know what you want, not anymore. To be happy, you suppose, to spend the rest of your life happy and loved and with… anyway. Maybe that should be your birthday wish? You remember as a child being told by your mother on your birthday when she lit the candles on your cake and pulled out the camera to make a wish as you blew out the candles, remember her telling you when you were still very young that as long as you kept your wish a secret, it was bound to come true. She never stopped telling you to make a wish, but you can pinpoint the first time she failed to tell you it was going to come true. 1989, the year your father left.

You haven't got a cake, of course, you haven't got any candles, haven't got anyone to sing you 'Happy Birthday' or take the photographs like your mother used to do. You wouldn't want a cake anyway, because you'd be eating the whole thing by yourself and you strongly suspect you'd feel rather sick after a while. But can you still have the wish? Maybe. You're not too sure. Then you decide that blow it, you haven't exactly had the best birthday ever and if there's ever been a year you've deserved a wish, it's this year. God you're rambling. Maybe you're drunk.

Your original plan was to stick it out until late, maybe meet your own male version of Harry's Sanne. You don't really want to hook up with someone, not now, not in this mood when you've come closer than ever before to admitting to yourself… But in some ways you do. In some ways that's exactly what you want. Harry's hated almost every single one of your boyfriends ever since you've met, so chances are if you hook up with someone this evening, he's not going to like them. And you want to make him feel those pangs of hatred, you want to get back at him, and the more you think about it the more you realize that it's not Harry forgetting about your birthday that you want to get him back for. It's the fact that he'd rather spend his evening with Sanne, who he's known for all of two weeks, than you, his best friend, whom he's known for 7 years. God, you sound like a selfish bitch.

In the end, though, you don't even manage to hold out until 10 before you can't face this anymore, so you pay for your drink and go, pulling your jumper tightly around you against the cold and cursing yourself for abandoning your coat across your sofa when you dropped in at home to change. You'd hoped that avoiding going home to your cold, empty apartment would stop your moping, snap you out of your bubble of self-pity, but if anything it's just made it all worse. At least at home you can be a friendless hermit out of sight, whereas out in public everyone knows it.

You're almost at the top of the stairs before you finally notice that there's something large and colourful sat proudly on your doorstep. You frown, not quite sure what it is from around the corner, hurrying up the last few steps with your heart beating a little faster, hesitating only to check your watch. 10.23… the day is almost over, yes, but there's still another hour and a half before you're officially 35 and a day. Maybe, just maybe, he does care enough to bother with your birthday after all.

The large coloured mass sat on your doorstep turns out to be one of the hugest bunches of flowers you've ever seen, a Technicolor mix of roses and Michaelmas daisies and gerberas and several others you don't even bother to identify as you bend down to pick it up, suddenly rather overwhelmed. Overwhelmed because there's only one person who could have possibly sent you such a huge, beautiful bunch of flowers on your birthday, and you've just spent a good couple of hours trying to come up with a way to anger him, to get back at him for forgetting. OK, so you know he did forget, you know this is as much an apology for forgetting as it is a 'happy birthday', but still, it takes the edge off the hurt a little, allows you to feel marginally better. Harry might have gone out with Sanne instead of you on your birthday, might have forgotten it was your birthday at all, but at least he cares. At least he cares enough to have sent you flowers to say sorry.

You notice a small white envelope lying next to the flowers as you bend down to pick them up, discarding the flowers now for a moment as you stand up again, key in the door, turning it to let yourself in and ripping open the envelope simultaneously. You pull out the card and pick up the flowers, carrying them into your flat and collapsing onto the sofa with a gentle sigh as you begin to read.

_Nikki,_

_I'm sorry. I know sorry doesn't really cover it, but for what it's worth, I'm so, so, sorry for being such a useless, pathetic git of a friend. I could give you a whole catalogue of excuses, but I doubt you're going to want to hear them, and to be perfectly honest I don't blame you at all. There's no excuse, especially after how supportive you've been this past few months, and you have my permission to be furious with me for weeks. I'll make it up to you. I know it's too late now and nothing I do now in light of today is ever going to make up for forgetting your birthday, but I'm going to do my best. _

_I'm not going out with Sanne tonight. I don't want to spend this evening with her, I want to spend it with you, and I'm not just saying that because I'm feeling guilty, or because it's your birthday. You're just going to have to trust me on that one, I'm afraid. I know I've let you down hugely, and I'm so sorry, but I haven't ever lied to you, have I? I wouldn't lie to you about something like this. I feel awful enough without lying to you, too. _

_Call me when you get this. Even if you're mad at me then call me when you get this, you can scream at me down the phone if you like. I don't mind, I know I deserve it. But please, call me. Even if it's to tell me you've thrown the flowers in the bin and you're never going to forgive me. _

_Love, Harry xx_

You have to read it through 4 times back to back before it finally computes. He's sorry. He does care, you can tell that from the card, his guilt and worry that you're fuming at him is evident. Which you're not, of course, you've already established that you're far too grown up and dignified to make such a fuss about a forgotten birthday. That doesn't mean to say that you don't feel just a little hurt still, even though you know he didn't mean it, because you do, but you're willing to forgive him. You're hardly about to throw away 7 years of friendship and one of the few people you have in the world, the person who understands you best, the person you've come to depend upon over the years a whole lot more than you'd ever willingly admit, all because of one forgotten birthday when you know that Harry's still silently struggling to hold himself together at the moment. It's a curious feeling, now you think about it; the flowers and the message don't exactly make it all OK again, far from. But they do allow you to forgive, to banish the thoughts that maybe he doesn't care, doesn't care about you enough to remember your birthday. He does. He really does. Just what with everything that's happened over the past few months, everything he's been battling with, it slipped his mind.

You should probably call him now, you realize, leaning back on the sofa to admire the flowers, turning the card over in your hands as you contemplate, your fingers lingering just a little too long on the 'love, Harry' part with the kisses. He's clearly furious with himself, thinks you're furious with him too, and it's just not fair to leave him thinking that for too much longer, not after he was sweet enough to cancel his date for you and you weren't even in. If you concentrate hard enough, you're almost certain you can hear your mother's voice, faint, somewhat echo-ish but so real to you that you could have sworn she's there, telling you that if you phone him now then you're not playing the game, that _'you should never let a man know you've accepted his apology, Nikki. Let him sweat a little first.'_ She drilled that one into you long and hard each time your father failed to come home all night long; you know she'd have something to say about your calling Harry straight away on finding the flowers on your doorstep, know she wouldn't be impressed that you're going against her apparently fool-proof advice. But this is different, you assure yourself. This isn't your pathetic excuse for a father, this is Harry, your Harry, your Harry who's been dragged through hell and back over the past few months and who certainly doesn't deserve to be left to spend the night thinking you're mad at him when that's so far from the truth. A little… a little let down, you suppose, but not mad at him, never mad at him. He's Harry, he's worth a thousand times more to you than a stupid birthday.

You press your mobile to your ear anxiously, tensely as the phone begins to ring, wondering when exactly over the course of this evening you became so hopelessly desperate just to hear his voice. Your slight annoyance and hurt with him is long-gone now; you know it's late but somehow you're still hoping he'll offer to come round or invite you over to his, that you can spend the last hour of your birthday curled up at the end of his sofa, legs entwined, your back pressed to his chest as some strange out-of-control gambling-addiction-meets-family-crisis movie plays dully in the background for you to ignore, and you can pretend just for an hour or so that… well, you know. No point admitting it to yourself, Nikki, you'll just be disappointed. Surely by now you've realized that it's never going to happen.

He doesn't pick up the phone. He doesn't pick up your call, just leaves it to ring, the monotone beat of the dial-up connection slowly but surely driving you insane, partly because you're drunk and it's your birthday and no one in this country managed to remember, but it's not just because of that, not just the alcohol in your system playing with your emotions. It's because when you saw the flowers, read the card, you… You don't know what you expected, exactly. But… it wasn't this. It wasn't to call him back and end up getting put through to the bloody answer phone. Twice. Three times. Four. You give up after that, think you'll look far too desperate, too clingy. Maybe you should give up on the whole thing altogether, give the flowers to the nice old lady in the ground floor flat, tuck away the card in a place you'll never look and go to bed with your birthday wish being that the person who invented the goddamned things is turning in their grave.

And then there's a knock at the door.

You wander down your hallway like a small child in a dream world, slowly, cautiously, not wanting to get your hopes up. It's probably just Jenny from next door to ask if you can water her pot plants tomorrow, that's all. Don't get your hopes up, Nikki, not after what happened at lunch. Don't build this up in your head to be something it's not, that's the last thing you need.

Please say it's him.

You pull open the door slowly, keeping it on the chain ( a lesson you've learned after the Naomi Silverlake incident and a habit you can't seem to get out of) until you can see enough through the crack in the doorway to know that it's him. The first thing you notice is the look on his face, the mix of so many different expressions and feelings and fears and regrets that's enough to tell you all you need to know. He does care, you can see that even though the chain on the door. Of course he cares. How did you ever manage to convince yourself he didn't, even for a moment?

"Nikki…" he's begun before you've barely had a chance to fully open the door, his voice laced with guilt. "Nikki, I…" And then he suddenly changes tactic, reaching out for your hands and pulling you towards him, his arms snaking tightly around your waist as he pulls you in close, only to change his mind again and let you go, holding you out at arms' length. "Nikki, I'm so sorry, I… I… I'm sorry," he says again. "I'm a git. A selfish, heartless, scatterbrain of a git, and I'm so sorry, I really am, I…"

"Harry, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't, honestly, forget about it."

That, it turns out, may not have been the cleverest thing to say.

"Exactly!" he sighs in self-despair, running his hands through his hair as he leans back against the open door, eyes momentarily closed. "Forgot about it, that's exactly what I did. God only knows how… you must hate me, what kind of person forgets their best friend's… I didn't forget about it completely," he pleads now. "Honestly, I didn't. Well, I did today, but I definitely hadn't forgotten last week because I knew what I was going to get you and everything…"

"Oh Harry, don't be stupid, you don't have to get me anything," you sigh, wondering why it is that when someone forgets a birthday, the first thing they think of is the present they didn't buy. Why can't he just see that you couldn't care less about the bloody present, or lack of, because the only thing you want from him for your birthday is the one thing he can't give you, wouldn't want to give you?

"But I wanted to," he insists, sighing once more. "I wanted to. And now it's getting on for midnight, and it's your birthday, and you've been on your own all day, and…"

"Harry, please, it honestly doesn't matter…"

"Yes it does," he says sincerely, his gaze suddenly on the floor as though he's just discovered something fascinating about your carpet never previously noticed. "It really, really does. I…" He blinks at you, contemplating, fidgets awkwardly with his hands before continuing. "I broke up with Sanne."

"What?" It certainly wasn't what you were expecting, but that doesn't stop you feeling sorry for him. OK, so it's supposedly your day today, all 37 minutes of it that remains, OK, so you hated Sanne with every bone in your body and you only met her once for all of 5 minutes, but Harry's bound to be upset and you don't want to see him like that. "Oh Harry… It was because of me, wasn't it?" you realize, suddenly experiencing your own waves of guilt in your heart. "It was because of me. You cancelled on her for me and now she's broken up with you. Harry, I thought I told you…"

"No! Nikki, no, listen!" he says urgently, his voice rising to a shout. "I… I broke up with _her_."

"What? Why? I thought… I thought you…"

"Because…" Your heart is racing now, your chest tight, you're holding out your birthday wish in the hope that you haven't already wasting it wishing devastation on the idiot who invented birthdays, somehow knowing what he's going to say next before the words have even left his mouth but still on tender hooks, not wanting to let yourself believe it until he's said it, just in case. The let down if you're wrong about this is going to be massive, you know that, can't put yourself in that position. Not after 7 years of imagining this moment over and over a hundred different ways in your mind. Not now, not after tonight.

"Because I realized tonight that I didn't want to spend my evening with her," he confesses at last. "Not just this evening either, what I mean is that I, I… realized that…" He seems to have lost the ability to speak in full sentences, stammering as he tries desperately to get the words out. "I realized that there's someone else I'd rather spend my weekends with, rather wake up next to, rather grow old with, rather fall in love with. And then I realized I already had. Fallen in love with her, I mean. Someone who knows me better than Sanne ever could, someone who I can tease to death on a lazy morning off, someone who I can rely on above anyone else, someone with whom I can share my worst fears, my hopes…"

You can hardly breathe, the anticipation enough to hold you motionless as you wait for him to continue, desperate for him to give you the answer you've waited so long for. It's such a typically Harry moment and yet somewhat Jane Austen like, and just for a moment you allow yourself to believe…

"Someone so much more beautiful than Sanne could ever be…"

Oh. And just like that, your dream crumbles.

"You mean Anna?" You only hope you succeed in keeping your voice level and steady, keep the let-down hurt and anguish at bay. Stupid, Nikki, stupid. Why did you have to go and…

"Anna?" he repeats, frowning. "What? Oh Nikki…" he sighs, reaching for your hands, holding them gently and turning them over in his own. "Nikki, why would you… don't tell me no one's ever called you beautiful before."

And just like that, you think you might be getting your Jane Austen moment after all. Well, that's what you think until you're aware of something wet trickling down your cheeks, manage to get enough of a grip on yourself to realize you're crying. The only response you can manage to his question is to shake your head slowly, still not convinced that this isn't just a dream.

"Oh Nikki…" he pulls you into his arms once more, squeezes your shoulders a little as he looks right into your eyes. "You mean not one of all those inappropriate boyfriends of yours saw fit to tell you how beautiful you are?"

But all you can manage is a slow shake of the head once more, the doctor in you wondering if maybe this is some weird state of shock you're slipping into.

"Well, more fool them," he tells you gently yet firmly, no room left for arguments. "Nikki, listen, I… I love you, Nikki Alexander," he tells you at last, the passion in his voice finally reassuring you. "I think I always have. And I know how this might look, I know… I know it's soon, but I… we can take this as slowly as you want, I won't make you rush into it.. assuming… I mean… only if you want to…"

"Are you always this nervous and shaky when you ask a girl out?"

He laughs now, a shy, nervous laugh that you haven't heard from him before, yet find particularly endearing. "Maybe. So… so what do you say? Will you give me a chance?"

You twist your face a little as you feign deep thought now, teasing him, hoping your acting skills are still up to something. "Well… I suppose I could… on one condition."

"And what would that be?"

"That you take me to Butterfly World for our first date."

"Butterfly World?"

"Yep, Butterfly World, you'll love it. It's heaven."

"Well, go on, then," he agrees at last, pulling you in even closer now. "But only if I get to do this." And now his lips are pressed against yours, locked together in a passionate, romantic, gentle embrace, everything you've ever imagined it to be and so much more. You lose yourself within this moment, his very soul, eternally happy, at peace, just a little disappointed when he pulls away, cups your chin.

"Nikki?"

"Hmm?"

Then he grins at you like a Cheshire cat, eyes wider and fuller of life than you've seen them in months. "Happy birthday."

He's right. He really is right. Because this birthday, despite the way it started, despite this turning point coming only within the last 20 minutes of November the 14th, is quite possibly the happiest you've ever had.

**Hope it was OK, don't forget to tell me what you think :) Credit to Phil Ford for the 'never let a man know you've accepted his apology' line, which came from his Torchwood book 'Skypoint'. Wish they did that for SW too :( Credit to Amanda Lane for the strange out-of-control gambling-addiction-meets-family-crisis movie (Confessions of a Gambler, yes, it does exist!) and once again happy birthday Em! If anyone else would like a birthday fic then I would be more than happy to oblige- my only conditions are that you let me know at least a week in advance, you review your birthday fic and when you have a reading session of my fics you drop me a review :) **

**xxx**


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